johnnyotgsfandomcom-20200214-history
Only in Japan
This page will cover the things that were in some Japanese versions of certain games. When the video game industry was in it's infancy, Japanese video game companies have used content in their games that were either altered or omitted entirely when the games made it to other parts of the world. Though this is still done, but not as much in games today. Here are some of the notable things that were in Japanese versions of video games that were changed or omitted in localized versions. Super Mario Bros. 2-The many versions As a lot of Mario fans know already that the sequal to the game that basically started it all was actually the game pictured in the center (appropriately named Super Mario Bros. 2). The localized version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually yet another Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. ''The game itself was also developed by Nintendo of Japan, because the game did so well in Japan Nintendo decided to localize the game to see how it would do in other parts of the world. But Nintendo "panicked" at the last minute that the game wouldn't do as well as it did in Japan, they removed the DDP characters (and other characters and items) with Everybody's favorite plumber and his friends as well as items from SMB (E.G. The Magic Mushroom), of course this proved to be the righr move because the localized version of SMB2 happened to be one of the top selling games for the NES. The Legend of the Mystical Ninja-The Geisha Show This game itself is already wierd enough with it's Japanese style of humor. However, in the Japanese version of the Super NES game (in zones 4 and 6) you can view several quirky shows. The one in Zone 4 has 3 people looking like Ebisumaru (or Dr.Yang for those not familiar with the Japanese version of Mystical Ninja) dancing around, in the end they pass gas. The one in Zone 6 is basically like a strip club (as the Geisha in this video can describe) *slowly* takes off her kimono and undos her Traditional Japanese Geisha hairstyle looking like a modern stripper in the end. Because Mystical Ninja was aimed at children, it came of no surprise that Konami has omitted these shows when they localized this game. American Food It appears that Ebisumaru's fart dance and the Geisha weren't the only things to be removed from overseas version of this game. The food items also got altered. In the Japanese version had exclusive Japanese food: Mochi (Japanese Rice balls), but because it doesn't appeal to Americans very much, the food items in the game were altered with Burgers and Pizza. Final Fight-About Poison Poison Kiss is one of the more famous "Bad Girls" of the video game industry. In the Japanese version of Final Fight, she was depicted as one of the minor enemies you must fight against in the game. But because domestic violence is one of the more common problems in the United States, Capcom of Japan decided to go to some lengths for Poison (and her redheaded counterpart Roxy) to make it into the American version of the game, they even say that both Poison and Roxy aren't women at all, they were at one time men (or Transexuals) or men that dress in drag. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough and Capcom of Japan had to remove both Poison and Roxy from the American version of Final Fight (being replaced by their male versions Billy and Sid). Though later, Capcom has stated that Poison and Roxy are really women and admitted that them being "Transexuals" was to get Poison and Roxy into the American version of Final Fight (especially when Sega's own Adventure Fighting game ''Streets of Rage featured minor female enemies). Poison eventually made her way to American Capcom games in Final Fight Revenge and she even became a side character for Hugo in Street Fighter 3 and then became a playabel character again in Street Fighter VS. Tekken. Omitted Scenes There are also other games that had other features in the Japanese versions but were taken out in Localized versions. Tuff E Nuff is a good example. In the Japanerse version of the game (titled Dead Dance) had more detail of the character sprites, as a character's health goes down to less than half, that fighter's face turns into a bloody mess (even Kotono's face becomes bloody when her health is less than half). But there's more, in the Japanese version of this game the characters even have intro quotes (and this was years before any gamer has heard of Tekken) and even victory quotes as well. The 4 characters also have their unique endings (just like in other TFGs). But, all of the preceding were omitted when this game was localized, which was one of the many reasons why this game didn't do so well in the U.S. to me it's a shame because there were a lot of original characters (for the time at least). Alternate Names There are also several video game characters and even some video games that go by different names (some of which have been altered in favor of the Japanese name). One of the examples is Princess Peach. Her name Peach is from the Japanese version of all of the Super Mario Bros. games. Her name was altered when SMB was localized to Toadstool to better fit the enviroment of the Mushroom Kingdom which she rules. Megaman is also another example, in Japan he's known as Rockman (from the music genre Rock & Roll, not the mineral rocks). In Sonic The Hadgehog, Sonic's archnemesis (Dr. Eggman) was known as Dr. Robotnik when STH was localized as well. In Street Fighter 2, some of the famous fighters had different names to each version of the game. Here's a graph. Street Fighter Name Comparison There are also games that were known by other titles. There's another AFG (Adventure Fighting Game) named Brawl Brothers is known as Rushing Beat in Japan. Fatal Fury in Japan is titled Garou Densetsu (Translation: The Legend of the Wild Wolf) Game Violence Usually, the Japanese versions of video games are a lot more violent (and even sometimes more raunchy) than their localized counterparts. But sometimes, the Japanese versions of some games that are made in Japan or somewhere else can also be censored. This is true with this game known as ''No More Heroes. ''This was made by a Japanese game maker, but the Japanese version of this game was more heavily censored than it's localized version, for instance the Blood in the Japanese version is re-colored from red to black. Though some of the game's quirky humor remains intact for the Japanese version. Mortal Kombat has also received this treatment when it was imported to Japan. In Mortal Kombat 2, the blood was re-colored from red to green.